What was going on when I was born?

Despite an earlier pledge of neutrality, Governor Carey has discussed with Mayor Koch an endorsement of Mr. Koch's bid for the Democratic nomination for Governor over Mr. Carey's Lieutenant Governor, Mario M. Cuomo. Aides to both Mr. Koch and Mr. Carey confirmed the discussion and said Mr. Carey was leaning to an endorsement sometime before the Democratic gubernatorial primary a week from Thursday. ''There's no question Koch wants it, '' said a Koch campaign aide. He noted that the Mayor had praised Mr. Carey as ''one of the great Governors of this century'' and had said publicly that he would welcome the Governor's support.

Israel launched an all-day series of air strikes today against Syrian and Palestinian positions in central and eastern Lebanon, attacking artillery emplacements, machine guns, antitank weapons, command posts and a new Syrian anti-aircraft missile battery. The fighting came after what officials here said had been a long run of attacks on Israeli troops, mostly by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization using Syrian-held territory as cover. Most of today's targets were Palestinian positions, as opposed to Syrian ones, according to Israeli military sources. (In Beirut, the state-run Lebanese radio said that 40 people had been killed or wounded in the Israeli air attacks. Page A12.)

''Case closed again.'' - Larry Speakes, deputy White House press secretary, on the investigation into allegations against Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan. (A1:4.)

Sales by retail outlets in the United States fell nine-tenths of 1 percent in August, the Government reported today. The results reversed a rise in July and punctured hopes that the 10 percent income tax cut of July 1 would spur sales and help pull the nation out of recession. The main reason for the seasonally adjusted decline from July was poor sales of auto dealers, the department said. August sales would have edged up one-tenth of 1 percent from July if a 5.6 percent drop in car sales had been excluded.

The widely held view that most Americans should reduce their salt or other sodium intake to prevent the development of high blood pressure was challenged by experts at a scientific conference here today. David A. McCarron, director of the hypertension program at Oregon Health Sciences University, warned that widespread restriction of sodium intake may actually end up harming more people than it helps. And John H. Laragh, director of the hypertension center at the Cornell University Medical Center in New York, called current Government efforts to reduce sodium intake ''misguided.'' ''I think one of the sad events of the past several months has been an overreaction in the lay press to the dangers of sodium chloride,'' he said. ''The whole thing has gone much too far and has failed to recognize the great virtues of salt.''

Since the late 1800's, business here has been run by an extended family of industrialists known as the Monterrey Group who favored their independence and savored the 400 miles that separates their valley of steel, chemical and glass factories from the Government in Mexico City to the south. In the last two weeks, however, the Government has all but moved into their executive suites. The nationalization of Mexico's banks and the stringent currency controls are viewed by Monterrey's businessmen with the same outrage that Ford or Exxon executives would feel if Washington took over one of their subsidiaries. Until Sept. 1, when President Jose Lopez Portillo made his announcement, Vitro and Visa, two large conglomerates here, controlled Serfin and Banpais, two of Monterrey's largest banks. So far, Vitro, the largest shareholder in Banpais, has been the only company to go to court and seek an injunction against the takeover. Vitro's chances of success seem weak, but its swift action shows the independence of Monterrey businessmen.

When the men of the 23d Precinct talk about their female colleagues, Eileen Hemmerich's name invariably comes up. The men may not know the facts of the incident involving Officer Hemmerich last November - conflicting versions abound -but they talk about it all the same. To them the incident illustrates why, 10 years after women came on uniformed patrol in New York City, many male officers still have deep reservations about officers of the opposite sex. Of the 130 officers in the precinct, only a half-dozen belong to the new and rapidly growing generation of young women who are officers. Their performance, according to the precinct commander, Capt. John J. Murphy, ''measures up to the command as a whole.'' But the prevailing sentiment among the male officers - one that is rarely conveyed to the ''bosses'' but that has so clouded relations in the precinct that a number of men have asked not to be assigned to work with women - was expressed by Officer Harry Wolfe: ''Women don't belong on the street.'' It is a feeling based as much on perceptions - or misperceptions - and personalities as on evidence. Nevertheless, the experiences of the Upper East Side-East Harlem precinct suggest that tensions between men and women on patrol are more pervasive than the department acknowledges publicly.

Faced with a possible heavy loss of deposits in October when the first of the tax-exempt ''all savers'' certificates mature, the savings and loan industry has mounted a last-ditch campaign to persuade Congress to extend sales of the certificates beyond 1982 and make them more attractive to savers. Alternatively, the industry wants Congress to let the public put funds from maturing all savers certificates into individual retirement accounts. But the tax-writing committees of Congress and the Treasury Department were cool to the all savers certificates when they were adopted in the 1981 tax act, and they remain cool. Of $51 billion of the tax-exempt certificates outstanding in July, the latest month for which figures are available, $31 billion will mature in October, one year after the new instruments came to market. Of that sum, commercial banks hold 41.2 percent and thrift units - mutual savings banks and savings associations - have the rest.

International Israeli air strikes continued all day against Syrian and Palestinian positions in central and eastern Lebanon. Officials in Jerusalem said bombings were being made because of a long run of attacks on Israeli troops, mostly by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization using Syrian-held territory as cover. (Page A1, Column 6.) The Reagan Administration reacted to the latest outbreak of fighting in Lebanon with the statement that it was ''extremely concerned,'' adding that the fighting underscored the need to negotiate ''as quickly as possible'' the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon. (A1:5.)

A late rally in the blue-chip and technology issues enabled the stock market to register a sharp gain yesterday in slower trading. The Dow Jones industrial average, which was off 1.10 points at 2:30 P.M., closed up 11.87 points, to 918.69. Turnover on the New York Stock Exchange contracted to 59.5 million shares from 71.1 million shares on Friday. The overall market did not do so well as the blue-chip barometer, with advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange outnumbering stocks that declined by only 846 to 651.

BLESSED with a unique mandate and a minimum of entrenched academic traditions to block their way, the designers of the new City University of New York Law School at Queens College are creating what leading legal educators have often only wistfully called for - a thoroughly overhauled law school curriculum. The new course of study, which will begin next fall, will bypass such traditional categories of legal education as torts, contracts and constitutional law in favor of an interdisciplinary approach that recognizes that the various rules of law are no longer so easy to isolate as they once were. ''In an era when the Federal Trade Commission wants to get into areas such as the pricing policies of funeral directors, you can no longer make easy distinctions like civil versus criminal laws or public versus private interests,'' said Charles R. Halpern, the 43-year-old founding dean of the law school. Similarly, the new curriculum will be organized around nontraditional assumptions that most law is done outside the courtroom, that most graduates will at some time or other function as managers, judges or policy-makers, as well as counselors to clients, and that ''thinking like a lawyer'' requires a sense of history as well as the ability to analyze appellate court decisions.

The United States said today that it was ''extremely concerned'' by the outbreak of fighting in Lebanon and that it underscored the need to negotiate the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon ''as quickly as possible.'' With the new special envoy, Morris Draper, about to go to Lebanon, American officials said they hoped he would be able to accomplish for all of Lebanon what his predecessor, Philip C. Habib, did for west Beirut in bringing about the withdrawal of non-Lebanese forces. The concern here was caused by two developments: the clashes in Beirut on Sunday between Government forces and leftist militia forces, and the Israeli air strikes against Syrian positions in Lebanon in response to what Israel said were Palestinian cease-fire violations from within Syrian lines. 'Exercise Restraint' The White House, addressing the Beirut fighting, which seemed to have ceased today, said: ''The United States urges all concerned to avoid provocations, exercise restraint and thereby contribute to the hopes of the citizens in the region for progress toward peace.''